This invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and more particularly to an improved resilient boot serving to completely enclose the interconnection between an on-premises plug and jack interconnection of a single subscriber pair to protect the same from entry of moisture, insects and other contaminants.
With the advent of subscriber-owned equipment and the increase of installation of this equipment by the subscriber, there has arisen the need to provide a variety of equipment requiring little or no skill to install. The most common installation is the wall or baseboard mounting of an RJ 11 jack into which the already attached plug of a telephone handset is engaged to interconnect the handset to the subscriber pair.
While the RJ 11 construction has gained practically universal acceptance because of its simplicity of connection and disconnection, it is not without shortcomings. As contrasted with older type plug and jack connections, which it has replaced, contacts are of very small cross section, i.e., the abutment of the surfaces of very fine conductor wires. The common types of older construction, by contrast, employed pins and corresponding sockets of diameter approximating 1/16 inch, with correspondingly greater contact area. As a result, depending upon the locale of installation, many RJ 11 plug and jack interconnections are subject to the deleterious effects of moisture, insects, vermin and other contaminants which enter the effective contacted areas and cause excessive noise on the subscriber line.
While the use of rubber or synthetic rubber boots for moisture proofing in the electric and electronic fields is not new, the problem of consumer installation in the case of a boot for use with RJ 11 interconnections is caused by the fact that subscriber equipment, when purchased, already has the plug element installed on the lead. The external configuration of the plug, including the resilient latch member makes it difficult to stretch a boot over the plug where a portion of the boot may then contract upon the lead interconnecting the plug to the handset.